


Unpoetic

by whereismygarden



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:07:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no happy endings in this world. There aren't even good endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unpoetic

It was so cruel it could only be real: so harsh, so random, the sort of thing that happened in this world. No poetry, except the staccato modern sort, uneven lines skittering across a page.

                She hadn’t really been dead. His heart had nearly stopped at the sight of his lost flower, pale, a little wilted and grey, but alive and well and standing in his shop. She hadn’t known him, but it was fine—it was all fine, because he could feel his curse shredding like wet paper and soon she would.

                And she had known him, as a sharp and spicy breeze swept over him, she had called his name, and though he could not forget his purpose, he had pulled her to him and kissed her back, finally, decades too late and a realm away. Everything had been fine, in that moment: everything had been bearable, in her arms.

                Now, he felt he should laugh about it, pull the irony of _everything_ around him like a cloak, as armor, but it was pointless. There was nothing to protect, now.

                The story Regina had told him had been poetic. The maiden, tortured and desperate, flinging herself from her prison, was a pattern. The lady of Shalott, Ophelia: the story was old as story itself, so he had believed it. Purity and darkness, beauty and ugliness. The bravest reduced to the final cowardly act. In its symmetry and horror, the tale had been perfect: the end to a tragedy. The fates laughed and tied off their threads neatly.

                What was the story now? An ugly farce, absurd, illogical. No one would want to hear this one. No one wanted to hear real life.

                The town was angry. Furious. Beyond what he had expected, even. Regina would be torn limb from limb, and his only thought was that it was a pity he couldn’t do it himself. Magic crawled through the air, dancing away from his touch, and he knew this would all demand further study. So he had simply wrapped an arm around Belle and headed back to his shop.

                People were angry at him, too. He had expected a little of that, though he never lied to them. A few found them in the street: then would have been a great time for the magic he had returned to the world to answer his call, but none came.

                “Dark One,” someone spat.

                “Rumpelstiltskin,” another said, also full of venom. He could not match their Storybrooke faces to who they had been in the Enchanted Forest, but it scarcely mattered in which world they had been offended. He needed to get back to his shop, to prepare. He needed the upper hand in the battle that would surely come.

                One of them shoved him, and Belle steadied him, crying out a little. He snarled at them, brandishing his cane, and they backed off. Any danger had passed. They continued on to his shop.

                The weather had been bad, and the return of magic had shaken the town, physically. The wind picked up, and as they passed underneath an oak, a branch creaked ominously, cracked with a sound like the end of the world, and fell onto Belle. It caught him too, knocking him to the cold wet ground and leaving long scratches down his face.

                She didn’t yell or cry out, because she was already gone, her head twisted too far, her long, heavy hair stuck to the concrete and half-covering her face.

                He screamed, loudly enough that people would come, and soon. He didn’t touch her, only sank to his elbows and knees on the sidewalk. This pain was the kind of pain a man could only bear a few times in his life: this was what, the fourth or fifth time? When he had lost Bae, he had simply wept, wishing for the earth to truly swallow him up, put him out of his misery. When he thought he had lost Belle, he had destroyed half the things in his castle.

                He could tear the world apart. The magic was slowly returning to his hand, coalescing around him in his rage. This pain was transcendent. It was grief without hope, without meaning. It wasn’t a father abandoning his son, with hope for a reunion. It wasn’t a romantic tragedy, with fire and suicide.

                This wasn’t a _story_ at all: it was an ugly modernist novel, with no meaning. It was the fates leaving the threads of his and Belle’s lives hanging, long strands of blue and gold and white left twisting, potential fading.

                Regina had been right when she said they were going to a place with no happily ever afters. She had neglected to mention it was a place with no proper endings at all.


End file.
